Breaking: Federal Appeals Court Rules Oklahoma Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling, finding Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S Constitution.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals this morning just ruled that Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. In the 2-1 decision, the Court for the second time ruled that same-sex couples have an equal right to marriage under the U.S. Constitution. As with most federal rulings on marriage, the Court placed a stay on its ruling pending appeal.

“The 2-1 ruling comes after the same panel ruled June 25 that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the Constitution,” the AP reports. “It was the first time an appellate court determined last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act means states cannot deny gays the ability to wed.”

The ruling comes in Bishop v. United States, the oldest same-sex marriage case before the courts currently. It was filed a decade ago.

“Today’s ruling arises out of the oldest active marriage case in the country, filed in Oklahoma ten years ago; and follows more than two dozen favorable rulings for marriage in the past year,” Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said in a statement. “The legal consensus is clear: marriage discrimination is unconstitutional and inflicts concrete harms on committed gay and lesbian couples and their families. From the heart of the Southwest and as far as the Mountain West, the federal rulings from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals from Oklahoma and Utah affirm that all of America is ready for the freedom to marry. It is time for the Supreme Court to end this patchwork of discrimination and bring our country to national resolution as soon as possible.”

In January, United States District Judge Terence C. Kern, in possibly one of the more brilliant decisions the courts have written on marriage, found that Oklahoma’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage “intentionally discriminates.”

Kern, as The New Civil Rights Movement reported at the time, labeled Oklahoma’s ban “a classic, class-based equal protection case,” and cited numerous press releases noting animus as the reason the law was passed, like this:

State Representative Bill Graves said, “‘This is a Bible Belt state . . . . Most people don’t want that sort of thing here. . . . Gay people might call it discrimination, but I call it upholding morality.’”

Judge Kern also effectively chastised every so-called “pro-family” anti-gay group, every evangelical and every Christian organization’s arguments against marriage equality.

The Court recognizes that moral disapproval often stems from deeply held religious convictions… However, moral disapproval of homosexuals as a class, or same-sex marriage as a practice, is not a permissible justification for a law.

This is a developing story — stay tuned.

 

Image via Freedom to Marry